News

Attorneys React To High Court's Political Bribery Ruling

Publisher: Law360

June 27, 2016

Dan Wenner was quoted in an article,"Attorneys React To High Court's Political Bribery Ruling," in Law360. In the article, Wenner discussed the significance of The U.S. Supreme Court's decision to overturn the corruption conviction of former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell and reject the government's broad definition of an "official act" that supports a bribery charge. "The McDonnell opinion is yet another occasion in which the Supreme Court interpreted a federal criminal statute narrowly to rein in apparently overzealous prosecutors," said Wenner. "In each of Yates v. United States, prosecution under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act for discarding fish, and Bond v. United States, prosecution of jilted lover under the Chemical Weapons Convention Implementation Act, the Supreme Court vacated the convictions because the government's respective interpretations of the statutes stretched them to their breaking points. McDonnell sees the court again limiting a criminal statute to more precisely define its applicability."